"Need Catchy Word for "Area Effect Weapon"" Topic

In our home grown, grand skirmish, Sci-Fi rules it's easier to score hits with weapons that have an "area effect". These include anything that explodes (eg frags and HE shells), flame throwers, and, this being sci-fi, stuff like giant alien bugs that "projectile vomit" acid (just like our boys did when they were babies…only it was just stomach acid mixed with baby food…one of them did that at Thanksgiving dinner all over the table…but I digress).

:-)

So whether a 120mm HE shell or baby, err, alien projectile vomit, I need a catchy catch-all term that covers these different weapons. Currently we're using Area Effect Weapon but that's clunky and takes up too much space on our reference sheets and weapon data.

Suggestions for a catchy term?

Thanks in advance!

How about "Blast Weapon"?

Plater

As in Template

or

AWE
Area Weapon Effect

I have been hit by AWE!
arrrrrgh

AOE (Area of Effect)
Template
Blast

less catchy and more practical, but they're all shorter than "area effect weapon"

Flächendeckende Waffe

Bomb

Boomer, cos it is all stuff that goes boom really. Small ones could be Baby Boomers. Large ones could be Big Boomers, as in "he's got big boomers!"

… I'll get me coat.

Just change it up a bit and use an acronym.

AWE for either Area WEapon

Area Weapon Effect.

Area Wide-Effect weapon.

Edit (Wow, I was slow….)

does Kaboom work? or Boom?

Yep, I like BOOM -- Big Ordinance Overkills Miniatures

I still use "template weapon" – hold-over from my GW-playing days I guess.

YouTube link

AB…I'm digging AWE!

Our catch-all term for motivation/morale/overall soldiering and technical skill is "Mojo", so AWE could work. We try to keep things lighthearted!

We've been using "Blast" but it really doesn't capture weapons such as flamethrowers and other area effect weapons like the baby/alien acid vomit.

Can't really use "Template" since not all area effect weapons are template weapons. Our smallest element/unit is the team of 2-4 soldiers. Weapons such as frags simply effect the soldiers in the team and don't use templates. However, we also have large area effect weapons that DO use templates (the larger 40K template since we have a bunch of those hanging around).

Another idea was "Splash Damage" but it might be too long too.

Splash
Splatter
Burst

Ditto on 'Splash'

Splash Weapon
Splash Area
Splash Damage
Splash Effect

ZOD zone of destruction

How about G.O.D – Grid of Death as in this weapon doesn't destroy targets, it destroys entire map grids…

Just a thought…

RBKB

'Really BIG KA-BOOOOOOOM'

N.I.F.O.O.W.T.B.S.

('Nuke it from orbit, only way to be sure')

The 'I think we got 'em' template followed by the 'Who DIDN'T we get?' template.

Area Blast Marker

Lethal Rain

Except that 'area' could be substituted I'd go with the acronym of what you've got:

AEW

Sector EW

Zonal EW

Or just lose the 'effect'. In which case I'd go for Zonal Weapon – ZW.

BTW, I write rule sets from time to time and I have found a thesaurus is invaluable for such things.

Multi Man Mangler

Ok, I think we have a winner:

Splash Effect

I like it more than Splash Damage since it's factored into hit probability (which by default can damage multiple targets).

Is splash effect any shorter than area effect?
Not saying it is a bad choice, just thought you wanted a shorter/catchier term?

No matter, I will use AWE myself.

:D

Yeah, still a problem.

:-(

Wumphh !

Not sure if this helps, but AoE for Area of Effect is common usage for a lot of on-line and FRP gamers (see: link

As in "use your AOE attack" or "what's your AOE on that spell"

WMD

^^^

That.

Farthest Arced Reactive Template

Came to call it an AOE, saw it was taken. Only other input I have is that the FPS crowd seems to call the m203 a "noob-tube" for some reason, it is catchy and I sometimes find myself calling it that too…

"Slimed"

("splooged" might be taken out of context…. ;-)

Splat gun?

Gorka's Foot Print

The term I would have thought appropriate would be "area weapon", as distinct presumably from "point weapon".

If you want to call them something like "splodgematic" and "plinkoid" weapons, I do not think it will either help the clarity of the rules, or continue to be amusing after the third game.

All the best,

John.

Mother-in-Law

If the weapon is US government issue, the outside of the crate would read, " Weapon, Effect, Area, One Each."

How about a 'sound chip' marker that says this?

YouTube link

Slishfully,
Sgt DWW-btod

BAO = Broad Area Ordnance?

Dan

Area effect seems fine to me.

Or maybe.
Beaten zone.
Zone effect.

If you like stupid words then zonk.
Zone of kill.
I zonked them, we were zonked I will zonk them.

Wide Area Munitions
WAM

Plural-Wammer

Wartopia, is this a development of your own homebrew replacement for FoF / TW?

I'm still wrestling with it a bit, though still enjoying the games with the normal rules immensely.

It significantly pre-dates FoF/TW and mechanically has almost nothing in common with them. I too tried both and ended up giving my Osprey copy away. IMO the system was just too convoluted and opaque. The procedures often reminded me of Calvin Ball, trying to figure out relative weapon and armor quality was a pain, and it didn't handle exotic alien creatures well. In fact, I remember several discussions on that topic here with the author insisting it was designed from the ground up for exotic aliens but in intro to TW's Osprey edition he essentially says it's focused on conventional/near future warfare between humans or human-like opponents (and I think it does that well enough). In fact, TW is really derived from Star Grunt which is an interesting system but a little too complicated for me.

Our rules are actually more similar to Flames of War and 40k in data structure and to Infinity or Battlefield Evolution in turn sequence. I've always liked the transparency of 40K and FoW as it's easy to see relative troop and weapon quality or characteristics. And I like action/reaction oriented systems such as Infinity and BE as they keep players on both sides involved and are easier to execute with multiple players if you build it right (no need to herd cats/gamers with statements such as "Ok, Germans, you move…Americans, you sit on your hands".

The game exists in multiple flavors with unique tweaks for 28/15mm platoon level games, 15/20mm company level games, and 6mm battalion level games. Each is very different in level of detail/abstraction and certain mechanics are very different but in spirit and in general procedures they're similar.

For example, the 28/15mm platoon level sci-fi version must handle everything from giant alien bugs to basic human troopers to robots and cyborgs using a common data structure. For this version we use 40K-like stat lines for troops and weapons.

Meanwhile, the 20/15mm company level, near future version is more abstract with its focus on conventional forces and no need to handle Bugs vs Colonial Marines. For this version we use a single reference sheet along the lines of old school games. Technically, vehicles are still defined in a separate sheet but in broad terms. So, once you know that "jeeps" and jeep-like vehicles use ATV movement and have Armor Type X then you don't need the vehicle data sheets.

The biggest difference between our rules and other simple games such as 40K and FoW is that suppression and overwatch are core to the system. Infantry in hard cover is nearly impossible to kill with basic small arms so you need to suppress and assault or roll up with big HE direct fire. And infantry hanging around in the open in the face of automatic weapons fire tends to get killed quickly…unless of course that infantry is self-healing robots clanking across the battlefield! :-) They're slow but relentless!

Needless to say, I'm interested in just this sort of games as well. I'd gladly take a look and maybe even participate in further development of something like this.

Is splash effect any shorter than area effect?

Well, it's three syllables as against five, so certainly shorter in speech, if not in writing.

Back when I played StarCraft, "splash damage" tended to get shortened to just "splash", as in "bats are good against 'lings 'cos they do splash" (fire bats being men with flamethrowers and zerglings small critters that tend to attack in dense masses).